


In My Dreams

by KoreanGal55555



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And super good memories, Andy is vodka aunt/grandma, Because how else can they survive for years and remember so much, Booker is the long-suffering uncle/older brother, Canon Temporary Character Death, Explanation of some inside jokes, Found Family, Gen, Joe and Nicky are honeymoon dads, Just to stick with canon, M/M, Nile is the baby, One Shot, Osmosis learning?, Other, Sort Of, Speed learning, Temporary Character Death, The second chapter is mostly information dumping, They can still forget though, Where the dreams don't stop, You can pry this out of my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:14:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26315497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KoreanGal55555/pseuds/KoreanGal55555
Summary: The AU no one asked for where the dreams of each other don't stop.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf & Nicky | Nicolo & Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 2
Kudos: 60





	1. All Of You

The first dream Nile has - the one before she's even met them - is more flashes than anything.

She pretends that they're just figments of imagination, impressions of what she wants or feels like. She can't remember her dream for the next night, so she continues to pretend.

But then she is kidnapped and meets them, the others like her, and she has another dream and the quiet but firm, "Tell us," and the looks on their faces as she does and-

"Her name was Quynh." 

So, she knows:

Chains swinging in a train car escaping from somewhere. Booker taking a swig of alcohol from his personal flask to numb the past (Whatever that might be, she thinks at the time), the warmth on Nicky's back surrounded in love (Joe), the moon in Joe's arms (Nicky), a desperate rush of air trapped underneath dark waters from Quynh (along with the quiet wish of the end), and Andy resting her head against something metal with exhaustion ( _So many years_ , is the clearest thought she gets from the flash, and meeting Andy - _Too old._ \- it makes so much sense that it hurts).

And she remembers.

_"How are you all in my dreams?"_

_"We dream of each other constantly until we meet another one of us."_

They never said it stopped.

...xXx...

In some ways, she thinks she's lucky.

The Merrick debacle, made simpler with Booker's quick though pained admittance and work (quite literally given how Andy had stabbed him in the shoulder in that abandoned mine), is only days long, and she has no dreams of them during that time. (They're just normal dreams, and part of her might want to cry at how dreams can be "normal," but she thinks given how her life has turned out, no one can blame her.)

It's only later, on their first Copley-assisted mission, (Nile's second mission since she considers the Merrick rescue as her first one - though that had Copley as well, so would this be her second Copley-assisted mission?) that she wakes up between one moment and the next. 

She has still-wet tear tracks on her cheeks, and the sweetness of the dream is tinged bitter by the lingering _this can't last_ in every moment.

She takes a shaky breath and the images fade slightly as she takes in the others in her watery vision - Joe and Nicky wrapped around each other against the wall, Andy between them and her. (Booker is, she recalls vaguely, on watch.)

She's quiet enough that no one wakes this time, so she lies there and thinks.

_He's scared and so in love. His wife knows with just a look that something is wrong, but she doesn't push and waits as always. Her eyes are so, so bright and her palm warm and strong yet soft against his._

_She leans into his touch as he leans into hers, and their mutual smiles brighten at the sound of someone at the door._

_He's surprised by his eldest son's height, and the woman at his son's side is as loving and as tough as his mother even at just a glance. He chose well._

_Each minute of the night is good - talk of the future and good-natured laughter, delicious food and full bellies, warmth and love - but he's still scared. So, so scared._

She holds onto that memory, and when the job is done, the five of them gathered around a table of food and alcohol late into the night, she brings it up. She describes it to them with just as much anxiety as the first dream she shared, part of her feeling wrong - like an intruder in an intimate moment, however innocent and beautiful.

They look to each other, then to Booker, and it doesn't take her longer than a second to put it together - a memory of Booker's. Somehow. Part of her is curious about the details of what she saw, but she holds her tongue.

"Is it always memories?" she asks instead. 

"Most of the time," Booker answers after swallowing his bite of food - some sort of pasta she didn't quite catch the name of. "Sometimes, we'll see through their eyes at the current moment. We'll teach you how to direct it."

"Direct it?" Nile repeats, dubious. Her spoon rests on the lip of the bowl, the slightest glint in the lamplight. "Not stop it?"

The looks on their faces tell her that it can't be stopped.

Joy.

"It's helpful, especially when you're new," Nicky reassures, flashing her a warm grin.

"Or if you're separated," Joe adds, eliciting a soft look from his partner. The two lean closer to share a kiss that quickly grows a little dirtier, and the thought "Never-ending honeymoon" passes through her mind with a mix of fondness, envy, and disgust. (She likes them and is glad they have each other, but she really does not want to be witness for this.)

Booker waves his spoon in the air lightly, taking her attention (thankfully) away from the lovers.

"We can learn through our dreams," he explains with a shrug. "It isn't instant or perfect, but it speeds up the process. It's useful."

"Learning how to please a man as another man isn't super useful for Nile or I," Andy cuts in, taking a shot of her vodka straight from the bottle.

It takes a moment to process, and Nile's jaw drops.

"What?" she semi-shrieks, dropping her spoon entirely.

She doesn't freak out. Just barely.

Andy raises her eyebrows in acknowledgement before nudging her bottle at Joe and Nicky who have separated. Nicky smiles sheepishly while Joe gives an unrepentant leer.

"Let's hope you're a faster learner than I am," Booker teases, lips curving upward in something light and cheerful.

Nile mutters something incoherent with heated cheeks, and even she isn't fully sure of what she's saying as Joe laughs, something loud and bright and wholly amused.

"She'll be fine. She's learning the fastest of all of us," Nicky declares, elbowing Joe in the chest with a hint of reprimand.

She opens her mouth to speak and pauses.

She then realizes that somehow the conversation had switched over to French (They'd been speaking French in the dream, she recalls), and she'd understood every word (and replied back in it).

This time, she does freak out.

(But, yeah, Nile is lucky. She could have had a sex dream between Joe and Nicky.)

...xXx...

(Oh, no. No no no no no.)

When she's still learning to direct her dreams and does eventually have a sex dream between Joe and Nicky, she can't look either of them in the eye for a week.

Joe laughs brightly and teases her about it - Malta, he bets with a wicked grin - while Nicky tries to mitigate with mixed results.

Booker pats her on the back awkwardly in commiseration, telling her she wasn't alone.

Andy rolls her eyes but teaches her how to wear a better poker face the next time they train together.

Nile looks up a baklava recipe specifically to thank the eldest immortal.

...xXx...

"The last thoughts you have before you sleep affect what you see," Andy tells Nile first and foremost right before bed after the memory with Booker's wife and son and daughter-in-law.

And Nile thinks to the first few days. The second dream she has where she remembers nothing ( _Please, please. Don't make this crazier than it already is. Let it be normal._ ) and the dream with Quynh ( _This is the worst. I can't imagine anything worse._ ) and the dream from Booker's past ( _I wonder what it would have looked like to go back._ ).

Yeah, Nile realizes, swallowing hard. It does.

...xXx...

_This is either the worst or best idea ever._

_Sao Paulo. 1834. One for the immortal's history books._

_There is warmth at her back, wet and sticky, and she swings around in tandem with the immortal_ (Booker. That's Booker. What's with his hair?) _to swing her sword into the heart of a cultist and disarm two others with her dagger. There's a gunshot to her shoulder, and it hurts, but she pushes past because that's what she's used to._

_They're surrounded and no matter how many they cut down, more appear._

_There's no time to breathe and all attention is turned towards them._

_They need just a second-_

_And then the wall across the room explodes, a figure flying in through the smoke with a loud and bright declaration._

_Son of a b-_

"So that's Sao Paulo," she comments, looking between them. "But really? For a boat?"

"For Quynh," Andy says quietly, the words almost a whisper. There's a second of silence and solemnity before she adds, "It would have been fine if Booker didn't fall in the water."

"I was trying to stop the brawl Joe started," Booker argues, lips turned into a pout rather than a frown.

"I was defending my love's honor," Joe replies, looking lovingly at Nicky, "and it was worth it."

"Then next time, you can fall in the water and get eaten by a shark," Booker declares, rolling his eyes.

"Still worth it," Joe comments with a wink.

Booker throws his hands in the air, absolutely done.

...xXx...

"If you have a skill in mind, it can narrow down the memories to things that contain them," Booker informs, using French liberally now to help her continue to improve.

She knows exactly what she wants to learn first.

...xXx...

Combat is something she's already trained in - something she can improve in, but not dire as of yet.

But languages.

She knows English and sort of knows French, two - more like one point five - in comparison to the polyglot group.

Over time, she gains useful languages - more French though she still can't ask where the bathroom is of all things, some Spanish and German specifically to haggle and ask for directions, flirting innocently and scandalously in Italian and Korean, the Japanese writing system (and only the writing system).

In between, she also learns parts of a few dead languages, a couple of accents no longer in use, and, in one case, a made-up code language that consists purely of Shakespeare references to indicate how a mission is going.

_"What do you mean they don't have any more eggs?"_

_"Two for ten, and I'll buy one of those at full price."_

_"The Tower of Pisa leans to get a better look at you."_

_"Exit, pursued by a bear."_

(They'll come in handy eventually, she thinks. Somehow. So she keeps learning.

And the next, next mission when Nile happens to use a language so dead it didn't even have a name to communicate with Andy, the entire group compliments her on a job well done and her heart feels so full, it could burst.)

...xXx...

"You can direct it to a certain time. Even a specific person if you want," Nicky tells her, smile gentle as from the first day.

"Just be careful about who and when," Joe tells her with a joking wink. (He just laughs when both Nicky and her shove him in reply.)

Nile surreptitiously looks up when the witch trials were in Britain and carefully avoids thinking of Quynh and anything past that time period before sleeping.

She forgets that not thinking of it on purpose is the same as thinking of it on purpose.

...xXx...

Nile gasps, sitting up from bed abruptly and trying so hard to just breathe.

"What," someone says sharply, the sound of metal - of a finger on a trigger.

Nile makes a sound, something to reassure but misses by a millennia.

"Panic attack," another hisses with the rustling of sheets and a curse from hitting the ground.

There are warm arms, pulling Nile against a soft chest and holding her together even when she weakly tries to get them to let go.

"Breathe with me," a voice commands with undeniable steel. Andy, a part of Nile recognizes. It's Andy who is exaggerating breaths at her back, and Nile holds on instead of pushing away.

"Come on, baby. In and out," someone else encourages rubbing her cold arm with warm hands. 

She still feels water in her lungs and fear freezes it, but the strength around her is encouraging and each breath helps loosen the next until she can do it on her own, however badly.

"It's December 2020. We're in a cave in Canada freezing our butts off because someone didn't check the weather-"

"Hey!"

It takes her a second to register the litany of soothing words (and purposefully light-hearted banter), but though it's reassuring, that's not why she's panicking.

The words are stuck between her teeth because though she's breathing, she's still stuck underneath the water.

"Quynh," Nile finally breathes, able to push the single word out though her chest still heaves with the invisible ocean pressure. The litany slowly subsides at the knowledge.

"We know," Booker reassures quietly.

"One day, we'll pull her up, and it'll stop," Andy promises, something solemn and dark.

_"Whatever it takes."_

Nile slaps someone's limb, harder than she means to but not even a bruise in her current state. 

The sound gets everyone to look at her as she finally pushes all of the words through her lips.

"I know where Quynh is."


	2. AU Details

_Alternate Universe Information Dumping_ :

The idea of dream-sharing just popped up at me. Probably influenced by another thing I've read / watched, but I thought it actually fit with the lore really well just because it allowed them to share skills. (Of course, stories about them teaching Nile their skills would also be super interesting, but my brain just ran off with this idea so-)

The dream-sharing isn't every day unless wanted, but it occurs minimum once a week. Most of what they get from it is impressions and feelings of the memory rather than cold-hard facts / exact conversations, but occasionally strong thoughts will also come through. 

Skill-sharing via dream-sharing happens very naturally, almost like the brain is kind of absorbing any skills being used. It does come with the downside that they don't absorb everything about the skill nor get to pick which skill you absorb. (Ex: If the dream is a memory involving haggling in German, you might learn some German or how to haggle or how to haggle specifically only in German or about the item they're haggling over. It's basically a mixed bag.) Also, they can absorb bad things about the skill - so if the person can never pronounce this one word right, the dreamer might also absorb that habit and have to correct it themselves. However, once they learn it, they're pretty set so it helps a lot.

Because skill-sharing does not mean they learn absolutely everything the original skill-holder knows, the original holder of the skill will always be the best at the skill naturally, but in a pinch, someone else can take over (probably) for the different parts. It's also how they learn all the inside jokes / codes without explicitly saying so. (Hearing someone tell stories about it is still hilarious though, because dreams only give so much detail and might not even include everything about the memory.)

Directing the dream does not always work, but it does for about 95% of the time. So yes, they all still occasionally get memories they'd rather not see (like bedroom dreams or from Quynh).

Dream-sharing is actually split up into two categories. The first is sharing memories and the second is sharing current vision.

For memory dream-sharing, no memory is repeated, so memory dream-sharing actually should stop once there are no memories to share left. At the same time, there are constantly new memories being made, so memory dream-sharing cannot end as long as there is at least one other immortal present. This is how most skill-sharing occurs because there's just more occurring in memories usually, and is also why inside jokes will never die.

For vision dream-sharing, seeing what someone else is seeing in a dream only works if someone is awake to see through and will wake up the dreamer if the said person goes to bed. Usually it's actually quite boring since it's like being on guard duty while sleeping, but it helps with seeing how the other is doing when separated over different lands and time zones. Mostly, they use it if they're tracking each other down from different parts of the world.

...xXx...

 _My Headcanons about Old Guard (movie only - some supported by details in the movie actually)_ :

  * The roles in the group are divided as follows: 
    * Booker works with technology and hacking. 
      * He's also the detailed one with the group (which is why he became the hacker because coding was harder for others) and is in charge of tracking who has what and needs what in a battle. He is the one to raid their attackers for things like bullets and give it to people without them needing to ask.
    * Nicky and Joe are counterfeiters for official papers (and art). 
      * They're both also really good long-range supports (aka snipers and bugs).
    * Andy knows the most about every culture and identifies them the fastest and most accurately. 
      * She's the best at combat as well. Obviously.
    * They're all about equal in number of languages but they each are most fluent (and modern) in different ones. 
      * They're all decent actors / actress as well. Although they all have roles they're more comfortable taking as necessary.
    * Nile becomes their expert in military movement in tactics and basically knows best the way around military-related buildings, plans, etc, especially if they're American. 
      * I imagine Copley and her teaming up to the point that she just becomes the expert in government funded security and organizations in general.
  * Because they can't die, they try to take each other at their words. If they need to swear / promise, they do it on important things on their life with the idea that if they are lying, they'd be risking the other immortal destroying what they promise on. 
    * Booker: the graves of his family
    * Joe and Andy: each other
    * Andy: (the search for) Quynh
    * Nile: her family (and one day, the graves of her family)
  * Violence is common in the group, because they heal. You can tell how upset someone is based on where they aim the damage (just in case the healing stops) because if it's simple anger, usually it's in non-fatal areas or areas that aren't the most painful. (If it's annoyance, it's to the point they can dodge.) 
    * Andy's violence to Nile in the beginning was because Andy was unrightfully taking her anger out about the situation on Nile (because everyone has to have their flaws) combined with the actual need to not let Nile escape.



...xXx...

 _Differences from Canon because of Dream-Sharing_ :

  * Booker did not sell them out to Copley / Merrick. They know Booker wanted to die but confronted him a couple of years ago about it after a dream 
    * The scene with Andy stabbing him is because she's upset and thinks he might have done it, but he promises he didn't and swears on his sons' graves, so she lets it go and orders him to find Copley or where he would have taken Joe and Nicky.
    * It takes a little longer for Booker to find Copley, because Copley is a security expert and he's actively hiding. 
      * Andy and Booker walk into an ambush by Merrick's men. Booker finds out about Andy's mortality almost immediately and surrenders in return for Merrick to save her.
      * Nile heading to the train station and then coming back is the same though.
  * They're still searching for Quynh, because they keep on dreaming of her drowning and undoing over and over again. They're still just as lost about it and still feel hopeless about it, but they keep going, even if it's only for random periods of time in between other missions. 
    * Andy is the most active one in the chase and has a gigantic map in her head where she keeps track of where she's checked, re-checked, and has not checked yet.
  * At the end of the movie, Booker is not exiled for 100 years from the group. He does get the semi-short end of the stick having to work extensively with Copley though. 
    * The semi-short end of the stick, because Nile seems to be the only one who trusts Copley fully from the get-go.



...xXx...

 _Random scenes that didn't make the cut (some within the world while others just because)_ :

  * A soldier in the armored truck with Joe and Nicky who questions why they can't let the two guys just kiss. ("We're either already immoral or blinded by greed. We don't have to be bigots too." and maybe later, "If they're sucking face, they're not causing us trouble.") 
    * Bonus points if the soldier is brand new to the crew - like first big mission new - and already hates it. This soldier is either only knocked out or gets the quickest death of those in the car.
    * Yes, this may be a sort of OC / SI character idea actually, but I just thought it'd be kind of funny for some reason.
  * Andy and Booker making generous use of Nile's "baby" status within the group to tell Joe and Nicky to not do things "in front of the baby" 
    * Nile thinks about protesting but accepts the status to avoid being scarred for life about Joe and Nicky.
    * She protests in other cases they use it though. Sadly, it becomes her nickname in the group.
  * Nile asking them why they know how to hack, how to forge, and how to do so many other things, but not how to use slang. 
    * Some future scene where Nile continues to be the only one who uses slang and fits in with everyone else speaking while the others are forbidden from using slang and pretending to be young adults / teens. ("You guys can only pass off as adults. Trust me.")
  * A kind of final scene with Quynh reunion. 
    * Location: Silfra (Iceland) 
      * Yes, I even did research and figured out where she would be for this reunion but ended up not using the scene
    * My idea with this is that in the beginning, they looked all around England and Europe in general. However, as time passed and more information was discovered about ocean currents, I imagine they've recently been focusing on the South Atlantic Ocean (especially with possible ice in vision dream-sharing with Quynh). 
      * They also left out commercial, well-lit, or well-explored areas of the ocean floor because then Quynh would have been discovered by now and because vision dream-sharings with her were always dark now.
      * What they didn't know was that Quynh actually didn't shift as much as they were expecting and had stayed in the general North Atlantic Ocean area and ended up inside of a lake instead. The reason she hadn't been discovered is because she'd been covered by rocks and resting in a small cave that people didn't explore because they thought her coffin was just more rocks (aka not a cave).
    * The reason Nile recognized it was actually really because of luck. 
      * The memory dream-sharing she had was of the one day that Quynh changed from the light to the dark. It's not even three drownings-and-revivals into the dream that there is an earthquake that causes rocks to fall on the coffin and surrounds Qunyh with darkness. 
        * From research, Silfra is a very unique place because of the water clarity and does have periodic earthquakes.
        * When others dreamt of Quynh under the water, it's always light or dark with things looking vaguely the same, but it's hard to see past the rage and insanity of drowning and reviving over and over again. 
          * Light: They think it's her coffin not quite dragged into the depths of the ocean, but is really Silfra pre-earthquake
          * Dark: They think it's her now and where she's been for a while (which isn't a lie), but it's when she was traveling to Silfra via currents and storms or while in Silfra post-earthquake.
      * Nile once did a huge project on the Silfra in high school, and it actually became a part of her bucket list to go diving there one day.




End file.
